Friday, 5 April 2013

First lady in the limelight

He is the most powerful person in China and head of the world's second largest economy, but when Xi Jinping
arrives for the Brics summit in South Africa on Tuesday, chances are
that all eyes in his home country will be on the woman at his side.

Peng Liyuan, China's new first lady,
was the talk of Chinese social media at the weekend during a trip to
Russia when she emerged as a trendy contrast to her predecessors.

Pictures
of Peng stepping off a plane with Xi in Moscow on Friday – the first
stop on his first trip abroad since assuming China's presidency on 14
March – went viral online with praise for her attire: black high heels
and stockings, an understated leather bag and a light blue scarf
emerging from beneath a dark trenchcoat, collar turned up against the
wind.

The 50-year-old People's Liberation Army singer is often
compared to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Michelle Obama, Raisa Gorbachev and
even Kate Middleton: a charismatic performer, trendsetter and dash of colour in an otherwise monochrome regime.

"I
kind of knew she would play some role in public life, but not in this
way," said Wang Zhengxu, an associate professor of contemporary Chinese
studies at the University of Nottingham. "Somehow she just hijacked the
limelight from Xi Jinping on Chinese cyberspace. That's quite a dramatic
development in my view."

After bloggers identified Peng's bag,
coat and scarf as products from the Guangzhou-based outlet Exception,
the company's website crashed on Friday from an overload of traffic. On
Sunday the site was still loading only intermittently.

Exception
was founded by a Guangzhou-based couple in 1996 who now run about 100
outlets across the country. "[Its CEO] once said Exception is best
suited for this type of woman: a bit artistic, someone who appreciates
quality but also stands apart, someone who understands international
trends but wants to express her eastern flare," the LadyMax fashion
website reported. "Is this not Peng Liyuan's style?"

The
Beijing-based entrepreneur Wang Lifen said Peng's life story was a
classic inspirational tale.

"Born into poverty, she used her innate
singing ability to leave her home town, worked diligently to complete a
master's degree at China Conservatory of Music, and used her gradually
growing fame and visionary intelligence to start dating a low-level
cadre," she wrote. "This is why so many people admire her."

The
recently retired president Hu Jintao's wife, Liu Yongqing, and Jiang
Zemin's wife, Wang Yeping, were both known to keep low profiles. Looking
for their names on Chinese search engines brings up only fragmentary
biographical information such as birth dates and alma maters.

When
Xi assumed the Communist party's top post in November, analysts
predicted that Peng would remain as low-key as her predecessors: after
all, the soprano had chosen to eschew large-scale performances in recent
years to avoid drawing attention from her husband's political career.

Yet
Peng's arrival in Moscow was covered extensively by China Central
Television and received a full-page spread in the Beijing News. The
couple arrived in Tanzania on Sunday, and on Monday Peng was pictured in
a bright red scarf casually draped over a tailored black jacket and
white dress.

Some commentators have expressed hopes that she will
take a more active role in forthcoming visits to South Africa and the
Republic of Congo. Peng was appointed as the World Health Organisation's
goodwill ambassador for tuberculosis and Aids in 2011.

Peng
joined the People's Liberation Army as a civilian at 18 and had already
reached the heights of folksinging fame when she first met Xi in the
south-eastern province of Fujian in 1986. She is best known for her 24
years as a soloist at the annual spring festival gala, perhaps the
most-watched television event in the world, belting folk songs in her
brassy, nasal soprano.

In one widely shared video clip, Peng,
dressed in military garb, sings about "bravely advancing for victory"
amid a chorus line of bayonet-wielding soldiers. The stage show is
juxtaposed with stock footage of battle-ready Chinese tanks, jets and
warships.

Internet censors have given largely free reign to
positive discussion of Peng but have kept a grip on the conversation.
Terms such as "Auntie Peng" and "first lady Xi" have been blocked on
Sina Weibo. Wang Zhengxu said censors probably wanted to maintain Peng's
image as a symbol of public diplomacy rather than brash commercialism.